by Clayton Wood
The rapture.
Kalibar shook his head, snapping himself out of his reverie. He glanced up at Darius, realizing that the bodyguard was still staring at him.
“Then I got my eyes back,” he continued. “I heard footsteps leave, then I laid there for a while, until my muscles came back to life. The next thing I remember, I was opening my eyes, and saw you.” Then he frowned. “Wait, what time is it?”
“Sunrise,” the bodyguard answered. Kalibar's eyes widened.
“I just went to sleep a few minutes ago!” he objected. Then he shook his head. “I must have fallen asleep at some point.” Then he frowned. “The question is, how did this thing get past my wards?”
“The assassin did,” Darius pointed out.
“Yes, true,” Kalibar admitted. “It...” he began, then stopped. He struggled to find the right words, then gave up. “He...I think it was a he, I mean he spoke to me, in my mind...he was the most unbelievably powerful being I have ever sensed. More powerful than anything I could have even imagined sensing. These wards...you're right. They would have been nothing to him.” He glanced at Darius then. “Did you see anything?” he asked. Darius shook his head.
“I heard you yell,” the bodyguard replied. “Got up, saw your door was open. Figured something was wrong, so I ran in, hoping one of Erasmus's wards wouldn't cook me before I got to you.”
“They're all deactivated,” Kalibar stated. And it was true; all of the wards in Kalibar's bedroom had been completely depleted of magic. Not a single one was still active. “So you didn't see anyone come or go?” he pressed. Darius shrugged.
“Sorry,” he replied. Kalibar sighed, but was unable to keep a smile from his face for very long.
“Ah, what does it matter?” he decided. “Whoever it was sure didn't want to kill me...and if they had wanted to, there wouldn't have been a damn thing anyone could have done to stop him. I can at least assume he's on our side.”
“You don't think it could have been Xanos?” Darius asked. Kalibar shook his head.
“Unlikely,” he opined. “He said that I'd wanted to meet him...that I'd said that I'd wanted to meet him, and that now I had. I don't recall ever having said I wanted to meet Xanos,” he added with a wry grin. “But then again, I don't remember who I might have said that about.”
“Hmm,” Darius mumbled. The bodyguard pushed himself back from the table then, standing up. He lent a hand to Kalibar, who waved the bodyguard away.
“I hardly need that anymore,” he stated, standing up from his chair with one smooth motion. An hour ago, that movement would have taken three times as long...and would have brought on a veritable symphony of aches and pains. “I think the rest of me healed too,” he added, shaking his head. “It's as if everything I suffered as a result of being a prisoner of the Dead Man...every injury I was dealt, every insult...has been erased. Hell, I feel better than I did before I left my home in Bellingham.”
Kalibar turned away from Darius, glancing around his suite, when he froze suddenly.
“What?” Darius asked. Kalibar said nothing, staring across the room. There was something different about it, and until now, he hadn't figured out what it was.
Everything was glowing.
The runes marking the marble columns, the suits of armor hanging on the walls...even the rings on Kalibar's fingers. They were all glowing a pale blue. Faintly, almost imperceptibly, but definitely glowing. He could even see a faint blue haze coming from himself. He turned to Darius, and saw no blue coming from the bodyguard. He frowned, then wove magic in his mind, throwing out a small gravity field into the center of the room. He saw the blue haze around himself ripple, a faint blue line shooting outward right where he'd sent the field. A shimmering blue sphere of light-bending gravitational force appeared in the middle of the room.
“My god,” he whispered.
“What?” the bodyguard repeated. Kalibar turned to glance at Darius silently. Then he turned back to the gravity field.
“I can see magic!”
“So?” Darius grumbled. Kalibar shook his head, realizing that the bodyguard would have no idea how magic should be normally be sensed.
“We Weavers feel magic,” Kalibar explained. “Like a vibration. I can see magic now, with my eyes...it's kind of like being able to see sound.” He stared at the rings on his fingers again, taking a closer look. He could see the tiny runes carved into their surfaces, the magic storage crystals behind each set of runes glowing ever-so-faintly. Even though the crystals were covered by the metal of the rings' bands, he could still see the magic radiating from them...meaning he could see magic through solid surfaces. He glanced upward, scanning the walls of his room. He couldn't, however, see any magic coming from behind the walls; that must mean that magic couldn't penetrate easily through solid materials, if they were thick enough. An observation that was certainly consistent with his experience.
Kalibar shook himself from his near-trance, glancing at Darius. He had a sudden idea. “Can you keep this between you and me?” Kalibar requested. Darius nodded.
“My lips are sealed.”
“They usually are,” Kalibar replied. Then he nodded to himself. “If I keep my sight a secret – at least for now – it might give us an advantage when it comes to the Council. And more importantly, if Xanos has spies within the Tower, it might make them careless around me.”
“You planning on seeing through your eyepatches?” Darius asked. Kalibar frowned.
“I suppose we'll have to let Erasmus in on our secret,” he admitted. “He'll be able to make me some one-way mirror eyepatches. Then I'll be able to see how my opponents are reacting to me, especially if I get their guard down by talking to them in private.” He nodded then. “In politics, knowing what your opponents really think is critical information. Perhaps I can make more use of this gift than was intended.”
Darius shrugged, clearly uninterested in politics.
“I'm going to check up on Kyle,” he stated. Kalibar nodded.
“Good idea,” he replied. He watched his bodyguard leave, then stared at a suit of ceremonial armor hanging on one wall, almost hypnotized by the sparkling array of blue lights emanating from the magical armor's surface. It was going to take a while for him to get used to this.
Kalibar sighed, looking about his room, not quite sure what to do with himself. He wanted desperately to wake Erasmus up, to describe to his best friend what had happened. The Grand Runic would be as fascinated as Kalibar. Darius had been predictably underwhelmed by the morning's events, no doubt because Darius appeared underwhelmed by just about everything...but also because the bodyguard, unable to sense or use magic, had no concept of how incredible Kalibar's experience had been. Kalibar longed to share his experience with someone who could fully appreciate it.
Suddenly, there was a loud, high-pitched wail sounding throughout the room. Kalibar turned almost immediately to the front door of his suite. The sound, he knew, was the emergency alarm. It had to have been activated by Erasmus, one of the Council members, or the elite guard...and only in the event of a catastrophe. He sprinted to the front door, which was always translucent from the inside, and saw Erasmus appear on the other side of it. The Grand Runic was dressed in a simple robe; judging by his appearance, he'd clearly just woken up. Kalibar activated a crystal embedded in the side of the door, and saw Erasmus's eyes focus on Kalibar as the door became translucent from the outside.
“Kalibar,” the Grand Runic yelled, banging his fist on the door. He drew back sharply as Kalibar's face became visible. “What the...!”
* * *
Erasmus and Kalibar sat on a U-shaped white couch, resting their elbows on the circular glass table in the middle.
“I don't believe it,” Erasmus was saying, staring into Kalibar's eyes, appearing mesmerized by them. Kalibar shrugged.
“And yet I have eyes, and I can see,” he replied. Erasmus shook his head.
“God, what I wouldn't give to have met this fellow,” he breathed. “
If what you're saying is true...”
“It's true, trust me,” Kalibar insisted. “This...being, he was indescribably powerful. You can't imagine it, the power he radiated...it was absolutely amazing.”
“So who the hell is this guy?” Erasmus asked. “And why did he decide to stroll into your room and give you your eyes back?”
“He only said two things, if you can call it speaking,” Kalibar answered. “'You wanted to meet me,' and 'now you have.'”
“So who did you want to meet?” Erasmus pressed. “With a guy that powerful, the list of candidates is pretty damn short.”
“That's what I've been asking myself all morning,” Kalibar admitted. “There's no one alive that I want to meet that I already haven't...and like you said, no one I know could be that powerful. It doesn't make any sense.”
“It sure doesn't,” Erasmus agreed. “Anyway, we have more pressing matters to attend to right now.”
“Yes, about that,” Kalibar said. Erasmus had been so surprised to see Kalibar's new eyes that he'd almost forgotten about the emergency that had brought them together in the first place. “So you're saying that someone freed some of the criminals from Stridon Penitentiary?” The prison included the highest-security jail cells in the Empire, specializing in the detainment of criminals who happened to be powerful Weavers and Runics.
“That's right,” Erasmus replied gravely. “No one realized it until the morning shift arrived, and found all of the night guards on the floor, dead. Not a mark on any of them, either. The bars to each cell had been ripped from the walls, the magic containment fields destroyed. At least eighty of the prisoners are missing...we can only assume they escaped somehow.”
“I still don't get it,” Kalibar stated. “How could any of the prisoners have escaped...in broad daylight...without anyone noticing?” It was a good point; all of the prisoners had been wearing blue and orange prison jumpsuits, and the prison's only entrance led out into a busy street. Yet there had been no eyewitness reports of a breakout.
“We did hear from a man,” Erasmus replied, “...a passer-by on his way to work at the time, that the two guards at the entrance had let an old man into the prison. A beggar, by the eyewitness's description.”
“A beggar? Why would they let a beggar into Stridon Penitentiary?” Kalibar exclaimed. “That doesn't make any sense.” The prison was on constant lock-down, with no visitors allowed. Only officials with the proper clearance were admitted into the prison, and even then only with advance notice. “Do we have a description of the beggar?” Kalibar pressed. Erasmus nodded.
“In process,” he answered. “The eyewitness is working with our sketch-artists to render a likeness. It should be completed within the hour.”
“Good,” Kalibar replied. “We'll notify the city guard to copy and distribute it once it's finished. I want the public to know what this man looks like...we need to bring him in for questioning.”
“There's something else.”
“Isn't that enough?” Kalibar asked. Erasmus sighed.
“Orik was found...” he added, shaking his head. “He was in pieces.” Kalibar frowned.
“I wouldn't have thought him shaken up so easily,” he remarked. Erasmus smirked.
“No, I mean he was literally in pieces. Someone slaughtered the bastard and left him to rot in his cell.”
“Damn,” Kalibar swore. “We weren't done interrogating him.”
“He certainly deserved what he got,” Erasmus opined. “But there's more...the guards at the entrance were killed, like I said before, without any sign of violence to their bodies...at least not externally.”
“Go on.”
“We ordered emergency autopsies on the two guards at the entrance to the prison,” Erasmus continued. “I got a report – right before I came up to talk to you – from the coroner about his findings.”
“So quickly?” Kalibar asked. A coroner's examination usually took days to weeks.
“As I said, there were no external signs of trauma,” Erasmus repeated. “But the guards' armor – and the guards themselves – were completely drained of magic. Not a lick of power left in them. And when the coroner removed the top of the guards' skulls, their brains poured out.”
“Poured out?” Kalibar exclaimed. Erasmus nodded.
“They'd been liquefied,” he explained. “The rest of their bodies were intact.”
“How were their brains liquefied?” Kalibar pressed, rubbing his goatee fiercely. “I know of no pattern that would allow for that without causing external damage,” he added. “Or one that would allow anyone to completely drain magic from a full suit of armor so quickly...not even Verhanian technology can do that.” But of course Erasmus knew this; if anyone would know about the armor the guards wore, it was the Grand Runic. Erasmus had, after all, been instrumental in designing that armor, before he'd gone into politics.
“It appears that whoever is attacking us,” Erasmus replied, giving an apologetic look, “...is once again capable of circumventing my work.” Kalibar knew what his old friend was thinking. First, his runic wards failed to stop an assassin from nearly ending Kalibar's life, and now his designs had failed to save the prison guards from having their minds literally destroyed.
“It's not your fault,” Kalibar interjected quickly, putting a hand on Erasmus's shoulder. “No one doubts that your work is among the finest the Empire has seen,” he added. “We have to remember that our enemy is resourceful in ways that we haven't begun to understand. We're dealing with a man who can raise the dead, and take on an entire room full of Weavers and Runics and win easily.”
“Small consolation,” Erasmus grumbled. “But you're right...it has to be Xanos, or one of his Chosen.” He sighed heavily, shaking his near-bald head. “We're dealing with people far more powerful than we are,” he added wearily. “I hate to be the one to say this, but I'm not sure we can win against such an enemy.” Kalibar said nothing, but he knew that Erasmus was only stating what they'd all been thinking...indeed, what he himself had thought just last night, while taking his evening shower.
They were going to fail, and there was nothing they could do about it.
“But we have to try,” Erasmus stated. “I refuse to roll over and die for these bastards. We won against Xanos once, we can do it again!”
“We lost,” Kalibar corrected, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Kyle's ring is the only reason we're still alive having this conversation,” he added. “How are we on decoding his ring?”
“Closer,” Erasmus answered. “But the blasted thing is maddeningly complex,” he added. “Most of the runes are completely foreign to us...I mean, I've never seen anything like them. We've isolated two dozen of them or so, and we've had our Weavers try them out. So far, all the runes have done is generate some sort of harmless energy beam. We're trying to link together the runes just like they're linked in the ring, but it'll take more time.”
“At least we're getting somewhere,” Kalibar said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Then he stretched his arms out to his sides. “What I wouldn't give to get a good night's sleep,” he added wistfully. Erasmus snorted.
“You're a politician now,” Erasmus reminded him. “You won't get a good night's sleep until your term's over.”
“Or until I'm dead,” Kalibar replied. “Now, about those eyepatches...”
Chapter 7
The morning sun shone in full force as Kyle sped alongside Master Banar, easily keeping pace with the Runic as they raced across the massive lawn of the Secula Magna. Master Banar had spent the better part of an hour explaining how Ancient Runics had discovered the unique properties of crystals to store and channel magic. Apparently, weaving had been discovered first, and it wasn't until much later that runic technology had been invented. Kyle's new instructor had not spared a single opportunity to show Kyle the many miraculous inventions that Runics had created in the past two thousand years. Master Owens had been right; Weavers were flashy and cool, but the Empire itself had been built by Runics
. He still felt lousy about his failure to succeed as a Weaver, but he had to admit that Master Banar had managed to make Runics seem like a pretty cool alternative.
“Did you have breakfast this morning?” Master Banar asked, slowing down, then stopping. Kyle followed suit, shaking his head. “Well then, time to eat!” the Runic exclaimed, dropping to the ground. “Come on, I've got plenty of food in my pack.” He slung his bag off of his shoulder, rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for – a small sack. “I've got bread, and vegetables,” Master Banar offered, pulling a loaf of bread out of the sack. “I don't eat meat,” he added. Kyle smiled, remembering the countless meals of bread soaked in soup he'd had during his last adventure.
“That's okay,” Kyle replied, taking some bread from his instructor. He munched on it, surprised at how moist and flavorful it was. It was certainly much better than the rations Darius had fed him on the way to Crescent Lake.
“While we're here,” Master Banar continued, throwing his pack back over his shoulder, “...I might as well start teaching you the basics about runes.” He took another bite out of his loaf of bread, chewing vigorously. “Now, you already know how to Weave, which is going to make this much easier,” he added. “Magic, as you know, is created in the brain, and must be woven into certain patterns to have a desired effect. Well, at some point, it was found that the patterns didn't have to just be woven in the brain. As long as magic was moved in a particular pattern – within the brain or outside of it – the effect was the same.”
Kyle nodded; Kalibar had mentioned something similar previously, at Crescent Lake.